COUPLES RETREAT - REVIEW
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Director: Peter Billingsley
Cast: Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau, Faizon Love, Kristin Davis, Malin Akerman, Kristen Bell
Rating: ***
Couples Retreat centres on a group of friends who leave their every day lives and escape to an island paradise together in order to find happiness within themselves and learn to love each other as couples again.
It's pitched a s Rom-Com and the cast list certainly shows signs of hilarity, however Retreat barely breaks a side slapping laugh throughout. This is partly due to the marketing. Why? Because the most fun parts of the movie are shown in the trailer.
The idea is a good one, and the set up is well done, but after Act I the whole thing falls apart. The idea that the island is split in two and the couples side is separate from the singles side is a good one that is left unexplored. There is an attempt made when one of the cast wanders to the single side to escape the deep and meaningful couples skill building exercises, but what could have become of that tangent is never really realised.
This movie is really driven solely by the male cast, and the women, in their bikinis just for show. The film becomes more drama focussed, as it progresses and that is not a bad thing, but such reality doesn't make for hilarity and that was the package with which we were presented in the trailer.
My main gripe with this was the "token black couple" who did not fit the story at all and seemed to be thrown in their to fill a demographic void. That dragged the tone of the feature down even more for this reviewer. Even now I still don't understand their inclusion, and the two they cast were very mis-matched. Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction) would have been much better suited as the male atleast
It is an interesting movie that seems more " art house" based though visually for the young teen market who are clearly not yet married.
A strong performance from Jean Reno as Marcel the Manager of the retreat is a delight to watch and John Michael Higgins(Fired Up!) and Ken Jeong (Role Models) as therapists are excellent as always though all three have been in far better comedies in the same minor capacities than this.
The script let the acting and the picturesque cinematography down here, though everyone involved seemed to enjoy themselves, and why wouldn't you - it's paradise!
HAVE YOU SEEN IT YET?? WHAT DID YOU THINK?? TELL US BELOW..
